Int J Med Sci 2023; 20(12):1600-1615. doi:10.7150/ijms.87430 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, 650106, Yunnan, China.
2. Research and Development Unit, Shenzhen GenDo Medical Technology Co., Ltd., Dapeng, Shenzhen, 518000, China.
3. Qujing Medical College, Qujing, 655000, Yunnan, China.
4. SDIVF R&D Centre, 209,12W, HKSTP, Shatin, Hong Kong, China.
5. Department of Sports Medicine, Qujing First People's Hospital, 650500, Yunnan, China.
6. CUHK-SDU Joint Laboratory on Reproductive Genetics, School of Biomedical Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
7. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Yunnan Molecular Diagnostic Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China.
# These authors contribute equally to this work
Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma (UCEC) is one of the major malignant tumors of the female reproductive system. However, there are limitations in the currently available diagnostic approaches for UCEC. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in regulating biological processes as competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) in tumors. To study the potential of lncRNAs as non-invasive diagnostic tumor markers, RNA-sequencing dataset of UCEC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas was used to identify differentially expressed genes. A lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA network was constructed by differentially expressed lncRNAs, miRNAs and miRNAs. Pathway enrichment and functional analysis for the mRNAs in the constructed ceRNA network provide the direction of future research for UCEC by demonstrating the most affected processes and pathways. Seven potential lncRNA biomarkers (C20orf56, LOC100144604, LOC100190940, LOC151534, LOC727677, FLJ35390, LOC158572) were validated in UCEC patients by quantitative real-time PCR. Notably, LOC100190940 and LOC158572 were identified as novel RNA molecules with unknown functions. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that the combined 7 lncRNAs had a high diagnostic value for UCEC patients with area under curve (AUC) of 0.941 (95% CI: 0.875-0.947). Our study highlights the potential of the validated 7 lncRNAs panel as diagnostic biomarkers in UCEC, providing new insights into the UCEC pathogenesis.
Keywords: lncRNAs, uterine corpus endometrial cancer, ceRNA network, diagnosis